Dishonoring Vietnam women vets.

At the Vietnam Memorial late in 2009.  Photo speaks for itself.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of the most iconic and sacred of sites in Washington, D.C.  The Wall itself bears the names of over 58,000 American men and women who died or who went missing in action.

Their memory is chiseled into that wall’s black marble, never to be forgotten; always to be honored in perpetuity each day, as scores of grateful Americans and others walk by, sometimes pausing to make an etching of a loved one lost in the far-away jungles of Vietnam.

Across a grassy space away from the wall stand two statues commemorating the service of thousands of draftees.  The first is the “Three Servicemen Statue” depicting fighting men standing shoulder to shoulder.

The second sculpture is that of the Vietnam “Women’s Memorial Statue.”  It portrays volunteer military service women painfully in the midst of a combat area of operations:
 
One is seen holding a severely wounded American soldier in her arms, consoling him while another is looking desperately at the skies, anticipating the descent of a helicopter to whisk him to the nearest field hospital.  (MASH:  Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.)

White House blasts Netanyahu, infers reversal of U.S. support in the U.N.’s Security Council

In early March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – in defiance of President Obama’s wishes – stood before a joint meeting of the United States Congress.

 

There, in full view of America and of the world, he delivered an impassioned plea outlining what he considered serious flaws with the in-progress terms and conditions of negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. concerning Iran’s march towards building a nuclear arsenal.

His speech quickly drew a searing blast of disapproval from the White House, and was characterized by the media as a ploy to win re-election in a nail-biting contest where Netanyahu was reportedly trailing his opponent, Isaac Herzog.

According to media reports, Herzog was thought to have been the favorite of the White House:  He was presumed to be far more pliable to the wishes of the Obama Administration’s push to convince Israel to relinquish territory that it occupied after the 1967 war.

 

However, Netanyahu’s unexpected come-from-behind electoral victory upset 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s apple cart.  His win was quickly followed by a second White House burst of disapproval even more intense than the first:

 

Netanyahu was accused of flipping his position concerning his alleged reversal about the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. He was criticized for his comments of Israeli Arabs “flocking” to the polls, and was accused of forming a last-minute alliance with hard-right Israeli political groups.

Barack Obama has consistently insisted that Israel revert to the borders that existed before the 1967 six-day war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

 

Nonetheless, Netanyahu has just as consistently maintained that Israel would not do that without iron-clad conditions to guarantee its security.  He recently said that he sees none of those now on the horizon.

What Netanyahu does see in the proposed Iranian deal which he so fiercely criticized is a largely one-sided, unverifiable agreement that will eliminate sanctions upon Iran, and facilitate the rise of an aggressive nuclear regime determined “to wipe Israel off the map.”

The security of any nation’s own citizens is at the apex of its responsibilities.  Without security you have nothing – not the basics of life – nothing.  This fundamental, existential premise is well-understood and internalized by the Israeli prime minister.

Israel is bounded to the north by Lebanon which is controlled by a militant Hezbollah.  To its northeast rise the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria during the six-day 1967 war and annexed by Israel in 1981.

Clinton kept official government e-mails on a private server.

At a brief press conference this afternoon former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton read a statement and took questions explaining why she kept a private computer server – site unclear – for all of her official government e-mails when she served as U.S. Secretary of State during the first Obama administration.

She confirmed that all of her private e-mails were also recorded on that same Clinton server. 

This practice was publicly revealed just recently.  President Obama claims not to have had knowledge of that custom. 

 

Mrs. Clinton, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2016 presidential race, spoke about this today from U.N. Headquarters, defending the use of her own server by invoking loosely-defined rules which, at the time, she claims, permitted her to do so.

Staunch U.S. Ally, leader and visionary – prophet in his own time, yet ignored by the White House

Netanyahu looks up at the gallery in honor of Elie Wiesel. (Bergeron Screen Shot)

Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

He expressed his deep reservations about the nature and risks of a nuclear agreement being negotiated between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States by Secretary of State John Kerry on behalf of President Barack Obama.

These talks are aimed at slowing – not halting – Iran’s march towards the development, acquisition and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, a goal that Iran’s leadership steadfastly maintains it has the right to do.

After carefully listening to Netanyahu’s message in its entirety and to his firm objections to the terms and conditions which he outlined as being at the core of the negotiations underway, I am able to confidently summarize our president’s offer to Iran in two short paragraphs: